Dear Kansas Preacher,

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by BobDylan

There is no offense on my part indicated in my last post. I am not offended at all... moreso, I am disconcerted. Disconcerted in the fact that conservatives, for whatever reason, cannot find the common thread to unite them. Not that they have no common thread, but that they cannot seem to find it. As has been stated time and time again, liberals can disagree on 9 out of 10 issues, but they will rally about the one issue that they agree on. Conservatives, on the other hand, can agree on 9 out of 10 issues, and divide over the one issue they disagree on. This is all I was pointing out P. I have no problem with conservative positions as long as they are consistent. In fact I truly appreciate them. What I cannot appreciate is the intolerance in many cases that is demonstrated from conservatives toward the slight variations of interpretations and applications.

Originally Posted by BobDylan

P.S. I am rereading your post here... and think I have not fully understood what you are trying to say. But I think after having reread it a couple of times, I am getting the gist. Are you saying that the UC's introduce the lists of rules in their own subconsciense to ensure that someone will "offend" at some point? Thus giving them fodder for "preaching"? (or something like that)... but other actually learn to grow past that mentality?

I of course, didn't really have you in mind, B.D. I was just throwing a thought out there. And, no to that last question.

What I have seen is that there are people who actually want to feel "offended" when they are around other Apostolics. They seem to get a spiritual high by saying, "Don't stand near me for I am holier than thou...." These are the ones I had in mind. They want to be mad and offended all the time.

Once at a Youth Camp we had a musical group that was sing after the kids all had prayed around a bon fire outside. It was one of those "We're out after curfew but that's okay...." kinds of things. Going through the choruses they got to "Stand by Me." This was about the time that a movie of that name had come out- I never saw the movie but I was aware that a lot of kids liked the song. "Whatever," I thought. At the time I actually thought that the song itself was based upon an old "Negro Spiritual" like "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and others. A couple of boys from a new preacher's family came to me and immediately protested. "That's not a Christian song!" and all that. Based upon the way that they were raised, their parents actually rewarded them when they showed such antagonism.

I observe people simply get off on behaving like that. By putting other people down they seem to think that they are earning "merits" in the Kingdom of God. Sort of like "points to get out of Purgatory." Run down the camp preacher- you get points. Run down the NAYC and you get points. Slam UPC leaders and you get points. He with the most points wins God's favor.